Multi Game Hunter
Comment 1: This is the Multi Game Hunter by Venus Corp! This backup unit can be used with both the SNES, and Genesis. It has two cartridge adapter slots on top, for either SNES, or Genesis carts. With a special cartridge and connected to a Genesis, it allows you to play copied Master System games as well. The disk drive on top is removable, but there is no parallel interface. At the time it came out it was the only copier to reliably backup Genesis carts. All operations are controlled from menus using the console's controllers, including disk managment, saveing and loading of both game data and SRAM. The MGH unit requires an external 9V power supply. One disadvantage is that you cannot connect it to your computer. A DSP adapter is available, and you can replace the deprotect with a newer version. There appear to be two versions of the MGH. The original black copier (pictured above) had 16Mbits of RAM, with no way to add more. That means it can't run some of the larger games. The newer grey version comes with 16-24Mbits of RAM and hirom decoders for newer games, the RAM is expandable. All accessories work with both versions of the MGH. More information about both is appreciated! I would also like pictures of the grey unit. Comment 2: The Multi Game Hunter by Venus is a nice well rounded copier. The unit serves both SNES and Genesis carts and has slots for both adapters built on. It has a removable 3.5 FDD which supports 720K to 1.6MB formats. All operations are controlled from on-screen menus using the console's controllers, including disk management from the menus, save and loading of both game data and SRAM. The copier came in two different versions, the original grey one having only 16Mbit game RAM and the enhanced ASIC black version which had 24Mbits and hirom decoders for the newer games. The unit has 256K of SRAM which is preserved when the unit is turned off, but if another game is loaded, the SRAM must be saved to disk first and then loaded when needed again. I found that most US and UK games worked on this copier, but there were problems with the majority of JAP ones for which patches had to be obtained. Comment 3: The MGH/ASIC has been released. This is just an update of the current MGH and has an ASIC chip and a new SNES decoder chip. It is fully compatible with the MGH. All current accessories for the MGH work with the MGH/A. 2 bases were released: A gray one, and a black one. The black one includes both HiRom decoders and can play all games, while the gray one only includes the one for <=16MB games. skleung@csd.hku.hk (Michael Klauser) writes that the UFO Super Drive reads slowly, and to make it faster you should use the internal format command, but that is not MS-DOS compatible. To attain a maximum of 29 seconds for an 8M file, you should use FDFORMAT and make the following batch file called f144.bat: fdformat b:/u d16 g100 x1 y3 For the MGH: fdformat b: g42 t82 n20 d16 x1 y3 MultiGame Hunter 24MB which supports SNES and Genesis was $370 back then A new dummy cart with 8MB of ram will be released for current MGH systems so they can backup 20-24MB games. The user interface and other pictures: Taken from a BBS File: Code: <--- text here ---> Comments : GameCopierUser0666 31-05-2006 21:28 #40 Had this one and had to sell it! Most units only have 16M. They will dump carts higher then 16M but most can not play them. Black units were the first Generation model and Grey (ASIC) were the second. They do have a removable RAM board for easy upgrade but you cant find RAM anywhere unless you find a unit that has 32M and does not work. kyuusaku 01-06-2006 13:22 #41 The ASIC model has removeable RAM, the one above, the PLD version, has built in 16M. AFAIK, the ASIC version will recognize 24M or 16M, nothing more, nothing less. It is not possible for somebody to upgrade a 16M board to 24M or likely change a 24M board to 16M, the board has a PLD. There are rumors of an unofficial 32M upgrade but I'm skeptical. There is apparently a Taiwanese clone of the MGH with a built in disk drive which is blue and grey, this may have some enhancements over the original product. It's called the "Game007 edition", the maker is unknown. I don't believe the MGH can backup games larger than it's DRAM, it's been a while but I believe it buffers the game in DRAM before any transfer operation takes place. I've barely used it for SFC/SNES but for MD/GEN, I've been lucky if it can even backup a 8M game, much less a 16M game, much less a 24M or 32M. kyuusaku 01-06-2006 13:22 #42 For many SFC/SNES HiROM games, unique "loader" code is needed to load the game properly and configure the "HiROM decoder" logic, these are 65816 code loaded along with the game file. MGH's SFC/SNES BIOS is pretty complex, unfortunately the hardware is lacking functionality which is why it's necessary in the first place. These loaders also have a unique bitmapped graphics feature, this was used to display Chinese characters and perhaps scene tags. All in all the MGH is both over and under-engineered; for example, Venus strangely used a microcontroller to manage the floppy drive controller instead of simply memory mapping the FDC like all other copiers. The MGH MD/GEN BIOS appears to be a Z80 (SMS) program yet the copier seems to be incapable of loading SMS games. It's obvious they spent a lot of resources on the BIOS, making it visually "appealing", and adding previously unheard of functions like directly dumping to DRAM, yet the GUI is extremely buggy and the MGH loading/dumping code is extremely rudimentary.. Great time must have been put into the logic since the majority of the design is implemented in a dozen small PLD (!), they probably did this to protect their IP, but unfortunately the end product is very unreliable thanks to all their board reworking and sheer number of parts. What's sad is that the ASIC version isn't really any more reliable unfortunately. GameCopierUser0666 12-06-2006 20:41 #44 THe Black model Does has removable RAM....Mine did. It will backup games larger then it's ram (mine Did) it does not use the internal DRAM it simply writes it to disk. WHen I would backup a game....It would not store it in the DRAM for play afterwards. kyuusaku 29-06-2006 21:18 #45 Many DMA11 (grey "ASIC" version) shipped with the original black tops. The original unit pictured above, the PLD version, doesn't have removable RAM. Category:Venus Corp. Category:Browse Category:Super Famicom Category:Super Nintendo Category:Sega Genesis Category:Sega Mega Drive Category:Sega Master System